thebajarunner - 12-2-2006 at 09:23 AM
(of course Calderon is a Harvard grad, so the New York gang will stick up for him as long as possible)
December 2, 2006
Editorial
Mexico’s New President
For virtually all of Mexico’s history, whoever has ruled the country has done so with unchecked power. Then came Vicente Fox — elected president in
2000 — a decent man with many good ideas who lacked the skill and appetite to muscle his programs through. To some, his passivity was just what Mexico
needed after 71 years of dictatorship. For others, his failures began to give democracy a bad name.
This week marked Mr. Fox’s departure and the inauguration of Felipe Calderón. Like Mr. Fox, Mr. Calderón favors modernizing a corrupt and antiquated
energy sector, simplifying the tax system, taking on dinosaur unions, creating jobs and improving education. The difference is that Mr. Calderón may
have the political savvy to succeed.
The political challenges he’s up against were made clear yesterday, as leftist lawmakers whistled and catcalled through his brief inaugural ceremony.
Mr. Calderón won a disputed election with less than 36 percent of the vote, and his party controls only 41 percent of Congress. His defeated leftist
opponent, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, still insists he won, although he has lost sympathy by vowing to block Mr. Calderón’s efforts. Mr. Calderón has
gained approval, seeking reconciliation.
The new president’s biggest challenges will be fighting poverty and crime and reforming the economy. Mr. Calderón has chosen a mostly good cabinet and
a steady economic team. But he has already flinched on one huge challenge: breaking up big phone, television and cement monopolies, apparently
allowing them to veto his choice of an anti-monopoly reformer for his cabinet.
Mr. Calderón announced yesterday that he would push for universal health insurance for children and an expansion of the country’s antipoverty
programs. He is taking a page from Mr. López Obrador’s agenda — which is good for Mexico and might win the new president some of the political capital
he will need to push through reforms.